Uncreated Conscience

Internets! You should check this out.

Dear internet, you have probably seen me tweet about Cindy Pon and Malinda Lo‘s joint venture Diversity in YA, but I want to take the time to mention it again and explain why it is important to me.

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Downloading a book illegally is stealing. Period.

This morning on Twitter, a woman tweeted at Sarah Rees Brennan that she had illegally downloaded a copy of her book because e-rights were not available where she lived.

First, you all know that I adore Sarah Rees Brennan. I am a huge fan. Second, that was incredibly rude, insulting, and thoughtless of the woman. Third, the woman tried to justify her actions because the mean publishers wouldn’t let her have her book! I mean, she would be a paying customer if it were available? In fact, she WILL be a paying customer if it becomes available! She’s going to let the author know this, so the author can relay the information on to her meanie publishers!

Other authors have spoken about the subject from an authorial standpoint and how it hurts them. (Saundra Mitchell‘s post in particular shows you with concrete numbers the very real consequences of illegal book downloading.) But for those of you unconvinced by their words, I have some words for you too.

If the illegal downloading of books continues, there may soon be a world in which you will never be able to read books again.

Bold words, eh? Hyperbole isn’t my strongest suit, but I am taking an issue and taking it to its most extreme logical conclusion.

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Things I have learned from YA Trivia Night:

1. I am really good with middle grade books published before 1997.
2. If it’s fantasy, I’m all over it.
3. I have appalling gaps in my children’s fiction knowledge including, but not limited to:
   • Picture books. No really, my knowledge of picture books (past and present) is abysmal.
   • Contemporary YA. If it doesn’t have magic, I probably won’t read it.
   • Contemporary anything really.
4. Scholastic’s offices are really shiny!

Alas, my team did not win a Golden Bunny, but we did draw a rockin’ picture of Geordi La Forge from Star Trek: Next Generation as an answer to a Reading Rainbow question.

This book transformed me in so many ways.

I’ve been pondering about YA these days, mostly because I’m at the point where I just can’t read another one. Why? I’m not sure. I have been nothing but staunch in my support of children’s fiction, but lately it’s been like pulling teeth to get me to crack one open. Like anything that’s popular, oversaturation in the market can lead to a diluting of genre, but I don’t think that’s it. I never read YA because it was trendy; I read YA because I have always loved it.

Perhaps I am fond of YA because it was the age when I first became transformed by reading, but then again, maybe I’m remembering it wrong. I don’t remember any particular age when I wasn’t reading for pleasure; after all, I was the sort of child my parents had to remind to “put the book away at the dinner table, please” and “for heaven’s sake, stop reading in the car; you know it makes you sick!”

In college, when reading had become both a joy and an agony (reading JANE EYRE for the millionth time? Yay! Slogging through CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER? Nay!), I returned to the books I had loved and cherished as a child for comfort. It wasn’t that they were all children’s books–my copy of LE FANTÔME DE L’OPERA is pretty much destroyed from being read so often–but they were familiar stories, something in which I could take unalloyed pleasure without having to worry overmuch about critical analysis. (I do subject everything I read to critical analysis–the English major, she is hard to turn off.) I think a large part of my affection is colored by nostalgia.

But recently I’ve been troubled by a sense of disconnect in my YA reading; that is, what I held dear about children’s fiction is missing from most of the YA I see now. Warning: Mostly my musings beneath the cut. May offend or infuriate some. Or not. Just my thoughts, people, no judgment.

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You might as well hang this sign by the YA section in bookstores these days.

This morning on Twitter, Cindy Pon directed me to a very interesting discussion at Enchanted Inkpot about “boy books” and “girl books” in YA and why there seems to be a discrepancy between boy-oriented fiction and girl-oriented fiction.

The dearth of boy books in YA is an on-going discussion, with question of “Why aren’t there more boy books?” arising again and again.

The thing is, there are a lot of boy-oriented books, but they’re not being bought in the same numbers as girl-oriented ones.

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So this blogging more initiative. It’s not being very successful at the moment, due to the fact that I simply have not had the time. La Redactora is busy enough for ten editors, not to mention things have been moving along with Cap’n Sweet Valley.

News! Cap’n Sweet Valley has acquired two more titles, this time in the nonfiction category.

1. WORKING GIRL: The Fabulous life on Thirty Grand by Laurel House
   A comprehensive guide for young women in their twenties and how to live on a very terrible salary. I found this incredibly useful. Publishing might be my dream job, but it, uh, doesn’t exactly pay millions. Included are tips on how to keep healthy, exercise, diet, what to do if you realise you need to break up with your college significant other, dating etc.
2. THE WOMEN’S PILL BOOK
   Um, this doesn’t exactly fall into the category of fiction and nonfiction for twentysomethings, but pills and pharmaceutical industries are kind of Cap’n Sweet Valley’s pet/personal interests. A reference guide to drugs on the market, specifically tailored for women: from everyday colds to hormonal therapy.

Anyway, the biggest news of all: The website is live for SWEET VALLEY CONFIDENTIAL!

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The hardcover of SILVER PHOENIX by Cindy Pon

Recently there have been rumblings in the blogosphere about the re-jacketing of Cindy Pon‘s book SILVER PHOENIX that have been brought to my attention. Reactions have been mixed, from outrage to support, with many bloggers pointing to the re-jacketing as yet another example of publishing cover racefail (the first being Justine Larbalestier’s LIAR and the second being Jaclyn Dolamore’s MAGIC UNDER GLASS).

This is a bit of sensitive subject and I was a little wary of writing about it. It isn’t the topic; I’ve blogged about race and cover matters before and I try to champion novels with POC themes, settings, and characters whenever possible, but this situation requires delicacy for a few reasons.

1. This is not directly analogous to situations in either LIAR or MAGIC UNDER GLASS.
2. I am not Cindy Pon’s editor or publisher so I obviously don’t know all the details.
3. Despite my best intentions to keep neutral, there may be some finger-pointing (not at Cindy or her publisher).
4. What I say may come off as a little defensive even though I don’t mean it that way.
5. Contrary to what we want the outcome to be, in this situation, we as the concerned reader may not be able to effect much change.

Those reasons aside, I did feel I was qualified to say something about this topic based on these reasons:

1. I work in editorial.
2. I am a woman of Asian descent.
3. I ain’t happy about this either.

Above is the original cover for SILVER PHOENIX. The re-jacketed cover is below the cut.

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Pardón, estaba incomunicada la última semana porque estaba muy ocupada por mi trabajo. He ayudado una otra redactora a St. Martin’s Press con sus autores y no tuve tiempo para escribir en mi…blog? (¿Cómo se dice “blog” en español?)

Sorry, I have the habit of reverting to high school Spanish when I get a wee bit stressed. (Of note, I love that “editor” in Spanish is redactor(a). Henceforth I wish to be known as a redactor.) I’m a little rusty.

So, JJ, you might ask, what have you been up to? Oh nothing much, I might say, just running around the Flatiron Building like a chicken with its head cut off. I have been assisting another editor here with her list while her assistant is on maternity leave. Said editor is a genius, with multiple bestsellers on her list who need a lot of maintenance. I’m still working primarily with Cap’n Sweet Valley, but now I’m on another floor (but in an office!). Now that SWEET VALLEY CONFIDENTIAL is about to go into production, I’m getting my exercise running up and down two flights of stairs at least 12 times a day.

Because I myself haven’t contributed much to the publishing blogosphere lately, might I direct you to this awesome series of posts on LGBTQ stereotypes in YA fiction by Malinda Lo? Today she blogs about gender perceptions, expression, and performance and how gender identity and sexuality do not have a 1:1 correlation.

Anyway, while I’ve been buried up to my eyeballs with work, I’ve also been reading my face off, so expect to be seeing reviews of the following soon:

1. TENDER MORSELS by Margo Lanagan
2. THE ART OF SEDUCTION by Robert Greene
3. A CONSPIRACY OF KINGS by Megan Whalen Turner
4. ILLYRIA by Elizabeth Hand
5. MATCHED by Ally Condie
6. DELIRIUM by Lauren Oliver
7. ASCENDANT by Diana Peterfreund
8. THE REPLACEMENT by Brenna Yovanoff

But I do intend to talk more about craft and writing, especially now that I’m learning from Redactor Genius. So here’s my question, oh blogosphere: What writing topics would you like me to cover? Publishing business you can read about elswhere; I’m mostly here to talk editorial (redactorial?) stuff. So shoot. Leave suggestions in the comments!

Back when I was first starting to blog, I used to make weird puns in my titles. I am bringing back my inner 17-year-old for today’s post. Anyway, where have you been, JJ? you might ask. (Or not. You probably don’t care.)

I was here. Book Expo America. And at social invents related to BEA.

BEA itself was amazing. I managed to attend the Young Adult Editor Buzz panel (featuring St. Martin’s Press’s very own Jen Weis) and steal a few galleys and ARCs, including MATCHED, which I have been anticipating for the past 6 months. (It won’t be out until the end of the year though so MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.)

However, the highlight of my day at the trade show this year was managing to fangirl Arthur A. Levine. He was also at the Young Adult Editor Buzz panel, but he happened to be leaving the Javits Center at the moment my coworkers and I were leaving and we had the amazing privilege of sweating our way to the subway with the man who essentially defined children’s literature for my generation.

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Let this be a warning to all ye aspiring publishing professionals: be ye be of Asian descent or have poor alcohol tolerance, this may not be the industry for you.

My state of being this morning.

This week is Book Expo America, meaning there are meetings to be had and cocktails to be drunk. Last night there was a Young to Publishing event on a boat. On a boat! There was beer! It was a great idea and a bad one at the same time! Meaning I had three beers, which was two-and-a-half too many.

Thankfully most of St. Martin’s Press is at BEA today and talk is down to a minimum. Excuse me while I curl up with some manuscripts and hope I don’t die.